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“Why wouldn’t I? I have nothing to hide from you about my desires.” But even as he says this Jemel can’t help noticing the way Xan’s skin shines, burnished in the light from the oil lamp. He looks like one of the heretical Gods he spoke of.

“No, it is not that. You did not agree because you thought my bargain easy to fulfil, you did so because you are desperate. Perhaps even more desperate than you are for other things.” He holds out the letter to Jemel. “Why is this so important to you?”

Jemel speaks plainly, remembering his thoughts about how Xan would be the safest person in the Rose Palace to share this with. “I was raised by the Zai Mother, a woman called Pershel the Moon Truth, she was as a blood mother to me.” He swallows, shocked by how emotional he sounds. “A little over a year ago, she died. They told me she took her life with snap adder venom. There was a Plumian servant girl who kept her chambers. She vanished the night Pershel died. It was assumed she took the chance to run away. But I recently found this letter, hidden amongst her belongings.”

“You think the servant killed your foster mother?” Xan says. “And this letter her confession?”

“I do not know what it is,” Jemel says tightly. “I cannot read it.”

“If some poor enslaved Plumian girl killed an Azurian tyrant, I will not help you condemn her.”

“If it says such you could lie. I would not know,” Jemel snaps back. Xan is infuriating. How can he respond so when Jemel just told him of Pershel’s death. But then he stops himself. “Please,” he says, voice suddenly raw. “I just want to know.”

“Very well then,” Xan says.

12

XAN

Xan looks closer at the sheets of parchment.

The handwriting is a little tricky, written in haste using an old style of forming the glyphs, but he has seen this type of Plumian writing before. He studies it carefully then says, “It begins." He points to the opening sentence. “My name is Embel, daughter of Pluma, slave of the foul Azurian Empire.”

“It says foul?” the priest asks suspiciously. “Or is that your embellishment?”

“There is no other way to say it in Plumian. The Plumian word for the Azurian Empire is Karakichi,” Xan says, “you know this word?”

“Of course.”

“It means Foul Land of Vicious Dogs,” Xan says, he raises an eyebrow, his point made. There is no other word in Plumian for your land.”

“I see,” Jemel says tightly..

“I am scared to write this down,” Xan says, reading on. “I fear I will be killed by maran.”

“Who is maran?”

“It’s an old word. It means something terrible, or perhaps someone. The glyph she has used could mean creature, but it could be someone she thinks has great power. I found Pershel dead in her rooms.” Xan points at the page. “Here, the glyph she uses could mean dead or near dead and fatally wounded.”

“But it says wounded,” says Jemel. “Definitely a wound. So it was not poison?”

“No, not poison,” says Xan, reading carefully. He can tell from the priest’s tone how important this is. He must get everything correct. Plumian glyphs can be hard to interpret exactly. Many of them can refer to multiple Plumian words. He realises how difficult it can be to interpret something like this. He wonders at how the priest seems to do it so easily. And he is moving from Azurian to Plumian, not merely from Plumian glyphs to Plumian words. “I took the dagger. She describes it: a small dagger made of ivory with something written on the blade. It does not say what. I think maybe she could not read it. It says, I took the dagger and hid it in a…” Xan frowns at the word. “A garden, I think it says. Her garden? I think she means Pershel’s garden.”

“So, it was not snap adder venom,” Jemel says.

Xan squints back at the writing, checking he has not somehow misinterpreted the part about the dagger. That the glyph that he thinks means a small ivory dagger with words written on the blade could possibly mean snap adder venom. “No,” he says with certainty. “She definitely says a dagger.”

“But does she say that Pershel was stabbed with the dagger?”

Xan shakes his head. “No. It says there was a dagger and Embel took it.” Xan thinks of her. A poor, scared young woman, finding the Zai Mother dead. “I took the dagger and hid it in her garden, for fear I would be killed. There is nothing more.” He looks at the priest. “Where is this woman now? Was she blamed?”

The priest shakes his head. “No. She was not thought of at all. The story was always that Pershel took her life with snap adder venom. She was commended to Zai quickly and her body burned. No one was blamed for her death.”

“But if this woman was stabbed she would have been clearly wounded. So someone covered that up and spread this lie instead?”

“Yes,” says Jemel. “I was always sure she did not take her life and this is proof.”

“I am not sure that it is,” Xan says. “The letter only says that Embel took a dagger from her chambers and hid it.”